.TH IMAGEX 1 "May 2012" "imagex (wimlib @VERSION@)" "User Commands" .SH NAME imagex \- Create, modify, extract, mount, or unmount a WIM (Windows Imaging Format) archive .SH SYNOPSIS \fBimagex append\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex apply\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex capture\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex delete\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex dir\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex export\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex info\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex join\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex mount\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex mountrw\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex split\fR \fIarguments...\fR .br \fBimagex unmount\fR \fIarguments...\fR .SH DESCRIPTION \fBimagex\fR is able to deal with archives in the Windows Imaging Format (.wim files). Its interface is meant to be similar to Microsoft's imagex.exe program. To do its work, \fBimagex\fR uses \fBwimlib\fR, a library which provides interfaces for manipulating WIM archives. You could wimlib in your own programs if you wanted to. Wimlib's public interface is documented. See \fBWARNING\fR. .SH COMMANDS There is a separate manual page for each \fBimagex\fR command. .SH SUPPORTED FEATURES The following features are currently supported: .IP \[bu] 2 Mount an image in a WIM read-only (\fBimagex mount\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Mount an image in a WIM read-write (\fBimagex mountrw\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Create a WIM from a directory (\fBimagex capture\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Append a directory onto a WIM as a new image (\fBimagex append\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Delete image(s) from a WIM (\fBimagex delete\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Export image(s) from a WIM (\fBimagex export\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Display information about a WIM file (\fBimagex info\fR, \fBimagex dir\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Change the name or description of an image in the WIM (\fBimagex info\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Change which image in a WIM is bootable (\fBimagex info\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Combining split WIMs into one WIM (\fBimage join\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Splitting a WIM into multiple parts (\fBimage split\fR) .IP \[bu] 2 Support for all WIM compression types, both compression and decompression (LZX, XPRESS, and none) .IP \[bu] 2 Integrity table .IP \[bu] 2 XML data (parsed and written using \fBlibxml\fR(3)) .SH UNSUPPORTED FEATURES The following features are currently unsupported: .IP \[bu] 2 Wimlib cannot add security data when it captures a WIM file, although it will preserve security data for existing WIM files. New files added to a mounted WIM will be added without security data. This does not seem to matter for Windows PE, but this means that you should not use this program to image a drive containing Windows Vista/7/8 and expect it to be applied with the correct file permissions. .IP \[bu] 2 Alternate file streams are unsupported and will be lost when wimlib writes a WIM file. Note that you shouldn't really have these on your Windows system anyway because they are unneeded and a security risk. .IP \[bu] 2 Directly applying or mounting split WIMs is unsupported. You have to combine them together with \fBimagex join\fR first. .IP \[bu] 2 The \fB--verify\fR option, for all commands that use it is unsupported. Without this option, there theoretically could be a SHA1 hash collision between two files, although it's very unlikely. You can still verify a WIM manually by capturing it, then applying it to a different location, then running a recursive diff on the two directory trees. .IP \[bu] 2 The \fB--config\fR option, for all commands that use it. .IP \[bu] 2 Different versions of the WIM file format (if different versions even exist). Also see the Doxygen documentation for Wimlib. .SH DIFFERENCES FROM MICROSOFT IMAGEX See \fBUNSUPPORTED FEATURES\fR. The most important difference is that this version of \fBimagex\fR cannot capture and restore Windows images losslessly because file permissions and alternate file streams cannot be captured. This is because Microsoft designed the WIM format to be specific to their NTFS filesystem and the Windows security model/API, which is difficult to support in a non-Windows program. However, you can still create images of Windows PE, even from a directory tree on a non-NTFS filesystem. See the documentation for each subcommand of \fBimagex\fR; in some cases they do not do exactly the same thing as imagex.exe. Some features, such as the ability to keep files hard-linked when they are extracted from a WIM, are not available in Microsoft's version of imagex. Also, doesn't seem to be an equivalent of \fBimagex join\fR in Microsoft's version; you would have to use \fBimagex.exe /export\fR, but that doesn't let you export all images at once. Microsoft's version has some weird limitations, like it won't let you extract a WIM on a shared folder, and it requires some commands to be run only from Windows PE and not from regular Windows. This version does not have these unusual limitations, although it won't actually run on Windows anyway. The \fB/scroll\fR and \fB/log\fR switches from Microsoft's version of imagex will not be implemented. Note that to scroll the output in the UNIX shell you can just pipe the output into \fBless\fR(1). Obviously, this version of imagex is free software but Microsoft's version is not. .SH WARNING Note: \fBwimlib\fR and \fBimagex\fR are experimental. Use Microsoft's imagex.exe if you have to make sure your WIM files are made "correctly". Not all features listed under \fBSUPPORTED FEATURES\fR have been thoroughly tested. Feel free to submit a bug report if you find a bug. Some parts of the WIM file format are poorly documented or even completely undocumented, so I've just had to do the best I can to read and write WIMs in a way that appears to be compatible with Microsoft's software. .SH REPORTING BUGS Report bugs to ebiggers3@gmail.com. .SH SEE ALSO .BR imagex-append (1), .BR imagex-apply (1), .BR imagex-capture (1), .BR imagex-delete (1), .BR imagex-dir (1), .BR imagex-export (1), .BR imagex-info (1), .BR imagex-join (1), .BR imagex-mount (1), .BR imagex-mountrw (1), .BR imagex-split (1), .BR imagex-unmount (1),